Then he slid one last document across to me.

It was a corporate life-insurance policy, taken out on Porter’s life, in a large sum, three weeks before he died.

Dax had signed it.

I sat very still with that piece of paper in my hand, and the diner’s noise fell away.

I had spent six months telling myself that whatever had happened to Porter, it had at least been fast, and cold, and about money in the abstract — some faceless calculation of shares and control.

This was not abstract.